What's the verdict on Ceramic bearings

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I'll ask another. For stihls proprietary bearings, could a used bearing be rebuilt and use ceramic balls?
 
That’s your opinion. Never said anything about needing them. I’m interested in learning about them and hearing first hand experience. As of now the price difference for a set of new bearings for a Stihl compared to a set of ceramics are about $50.
 
yo no los veo excesivamente caros .encuanto a recontruir creo que es mas trabajo en relacion al veneficio, ponles nuevos y ganaras tienpo.
si que he leido (no se donde) a alguien que los puso en una sierra con buena esperiencia inicial (falta saber como se comportaran con un uso intensibo )
 
Yotaismygame said:
I'll ask another. For stihls proprietary bearings, could a used bearing be rebuilt and use ceramic balls?
Click to expand...
I have a set of dominant Stihl bearings here if you want to try them. I’ll sell them to ya at a discount.

You’ll need to go hybrid-steel outer and inner races with ceramic balls.

Jasha aka Treeslinger made his own years ago and said that they outlasted the steel balled bearings 3:1 in commercial use. Many different opinions out there though.

I was going to build my own, but it’s a gamble. There is a company in California that makes the ceramic balls for them. There are different chemical formulas, and I believe the Silicon Nitride were the ones spec’d for saw bearing use. The issue is that you need to buy minimum orders of 100 balls in some instances, and it’s difficult to know which size ball you will need. If you pop the balls out of a 6202/3 bearing and Mic them, the size of the ceramic ball you will need will differ. Why? The metal balls expand with heat and the ceramic ones do not. So there is some voodoo involved.

The ceramic balls aren’t cheap either, they can be up to $3-4 a ball. I remember it being a $300-400 gamble with no definite reward, so I stopped.

Ive built 3 or 4 saws with ceramic hybrid bearings at this point. None have failed and one is in commercial use.
 
Appreciate the good info! I actually decided to build my own. Company called VXB sells the Si3N4 balls for $2.77 each. Roughly $44 to do a set of bearings. I took apart a few bearings last night, something I’ve never done. Started with just cleaning them up. Went a head and put them back together and they spin like new. That got me thinking, how often do bearings fail? I bet it’s usually something else that causes them to fail or not the bearings at all. I’ve seen way more trashed pistons than bad bearings.

Shoot me a pm, I’ll take the dominate bearings.
 
What’s this you say now about different size balls for ceramic verse steel? Because I measured the 6203 balls at 17/64ths which is a standard size ball. Exactly they ended up at 6.68MM and the website says the ceramic balls are 6.74MM. You think that's the difference? I sent the bearing company an email but who knows if they will respond.

Reason I'm interested in this? I had a customer ask me about it which got the wheels turning. If someone wants hybrid bearings then they can have hybrid bearings. For now I will try them out myself.
 
Yotaismygame said:
That’s your opinion. Never said anything about needing them. I’m interested in learning about them and hearing first hand experience. As of now the price difference for a set of new bearings for a Stihl compared to a set of ceramics are about $50.
Click to expand...

from what I remember on dirt bikes they were a step up. Higher sustainable rpms, longer life, less heat, better lubrication. Only a few people were running them at the time 10-15 years ago on a forum I used to frequent.

for high rpm porting applications I would consider it, particularity the smaller husky 350 screamers :)

I think it would be a good idea for a chainsaw, what are they worth in comparison to standard bearings?
 
Standard skf 6202 bearing is around $7. Ceramic hybrid roughly $50. For some people that’s not a big deal but others that extra cost is way overboard.
 
Wow things have gotten way cheaper. I built a gx200 based high compression nitro meth engine years ago...big cam, girdle, stainless swirlpolished and undercut valves. Aggressive ports, just...a stupid amount of money. At the time we were running laps and had hit a bit of a wall...at around 9600 rpms we needed more spring and they would have required a total revamp of the head...alot of machining..maybe billet.

So i opted to optimize what i had. Did a full mirror polish on the rod, cam lobes, Teflon coating on the piston skirts, deleted middle ring, knife edged the oil dipper, used a 0wt oil...and reluctantly 500 dollars worth of full ceramic crank bearings.

Kart ran faster...it freed it up enough that i was able to reduce the cooling fan blade height for even less drag..and it revved like a pissed 2stroke.

Eventually it broke the crank and became shrapnel...ive always wondered if the crank failed due to maybe some tolerance issues with the bearings...i dunno, it took a beating.

Sent from my LM-G820 using Tapatalk
 
Yotaismygame said:
https://www.hambini.com/ceramic-bearings-vs-steel-bearings-an-engineering-analysis/
Click to expand...
I used hybrid ceramics on racing bicycles. I didn't notice any significant improvement but it'd take a lot of difference in the bearings to make a noticeable difference. Many of the ceramics sold into the bicycle market have seals specd for a looser fit in order to make the bearings "feel faster" in the hand. But they also let in more water and dirt. I did have some ceramics die early. I replaced the bearings in some of the race wheels I built with better ones but kept with steel.

Ball bearing friction is so low that it will be only a small fraction of the friction in a two stroke engine (piston/cylinder being most of it). Friction is only part of the forces the engine has to overcome. Pumping air takes much of the power. Ceramics would give a tiny percent improvement over a tiny percent of friction. Not worth it except for bragging rights.
 
I'm going to mess around with them in my own saws just for fun. That article I posted really sums it up. Thanks.
 

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